Simple Butterfly Earrings

Hello everyone!

Yes, yes, I'm alive. Please don't die of surprise or anything. My humble little blog is indeed in your feed again. I apologize for my absence but blogging, while something I really enjoy, isn't something I make money on so I do this for fun. I must answer to the needs of the rest of my life when they beckon and lemme tell ya that they've been screaming lately.

I won't bore you all with the details but suffice it to say that I'm keeping very busy with the work I'm doing for Random Acts (more on that in a moment) as well as my belly dancing! My very first public show is coming up soon and I'm super excited.

Before I bore you with any more talk of my personal life, let me share with you the project I whipped up in my meager free time!

These are my brand spanking new butterfly wing earrings. I don't know about you but I LOVE butterflies. They're such a great reminder of spring and what with me living down here in Georgia, spring is already well on it's way. I decided to whip up something simple to make me smile. This is the kind of thing you can make in an afternoon.

Just take printable shrink plastic (you can get the inkjet kind at Michael's and I always recommend using a 40-50% off coupon that they e-mail out!) and pop it into your printer. Now go out and find yourself some lovely photos of butterfly wings. I found science sites were good for this as they splay the wings out just right. Put your photos into an editing system like Photoshop or Paint. Line up all your wing images so you get maximum use from your shrink paper. You don't need the bodies of the butterflies, just the wings.

Then just print them out, use a hole punch to make holes in both ends (or where ever you like) and bake according to instructions. Once they come out of the oven, I like to flatten them while still hot by using a book. This next step is entirely up to you but I then dusted some pearl powder on my wings in the colors that matched the wings most. It gives them a nice shimmer. To finish, just spray with some kind of sealant. I use Krylon Triple Thick Crystal Clear Glaze. That helps make them a little more water resistant.

Then just attach your earring hooks to the top holes using a simple jumpring. I also attached some cute sparkly crystals at the bottoms too so they shimmer more. You can spice it up by gluing on rhinestones if you like, or you can leave them plain. I liked just a touch of shine to mine.

You can also make them into a necklace like I did here so I have a matching set. :) The center is a dangle with a seed pearl and more crystals. It looks really pretty when the light hits it.

So that's it. Simple, fast, and just cute enough to welcome in spring. :)

Now, if anyone is still reading this, then I assume you're interested in what's going on with Random Acts! If you're wondering right now "What the heck is this nutjob talking about?", then allow me to explain.

I work for a non-profit organization called Random Acts. We do random acts of kindness for people and try to get others to join in on the fun so that all over the world, people are doing nice things for each other. Well we're having an Annual Melee Of Kindness (We're running AMOK) this Sunday and we're inviting everyone around the world to join us. If you're interested in participating (and no, we aren't asking you to donate anything or even affiliate with us) then you can read up on it at our site.

As part of my own silly participation, my friends Jenni, Tina, Jaime, and I are going to wander about a public park giving away flowers, balloons and candy to everyone we meet.

Why, you ask?

Because it's silly. It's fun. It might brighten someone's day when they really need it. It might make the difference for someone who's never been given a flower before. Maybe we'll meet a bunch of people who are too grumpy for flowers or maybe we'll be mobbed by people wanting them. Either way, we're going to wander about till our flowers and such are gone. :)

Hope someone comes along to brighten your day too!

Linked up here:

    

Happy Little Rain Cloud

While poking around in Pintrest, I found this ADORABLE necklace:

Isn't it wonderful? I knew I wanted one but I didn't have the means to buy one and it's sold overseas so I decided to try my hand at reproducing it. Here's the result. 

I decided not to tier the drops like the original but I might change it up next time I make one. I LOVE how it looks and it was fairly easy to make. Here's what you need. 

1. Strong multipurpose glue. I used 7800 All purpose Adhesive. 

2. A necklace bar with three hanging loops. I got mine from Michael's. They were part of a pack for making three strand necklaces. 

3. Three silver bails.

4. Three blue drops. The original used faceted crystal but I couldn't find any so these were part of a multipack of blue beads. I think they still look lovely.

5. Fine chain. 

6. Needle and white thread. 

7. One cotton ball.

8. Six small jump rings and one large one. (Not pictured)

First, attach the bails to your three droplets. 

Next, cut your chain into three lengths. I went with two the same length and one longer one for the middle but you can tier them however you like. 

Next, use three small jumprings to attach your chains to your bar pendant.

Then, using the other three jumprings, attach your droplets to the ends of the chains. 

I'm so sorry for the blurriness of this photo but hopefully you get the idea here. Just take your cotton ball and unravel it or stretch it out. 

Now lay a thin line of your glue along the bar and press your cotton onto it. Repeat on the other side. Now this doesn't look much like a cloud at this point so lets add a little shaping to it. 

Take your needle and thread, knot one end, and then begin weaving in and out of the cotton, shaping the poof to your liking as you go. The end result should have a puffy shape like this:

And that's it! Now go forth and wear your lovely raincloud even on the sunniest of days! 

Linking up here:

                            

  

Flan is love

I do so love to cook. I heart the crap out of it. It's ART YOU CAN EAT!! I mean, think about that! I can craft over and over and at the end, it sustains me! Literally! How awesome is THAT? Anyway, I always love trying new things and I saw this great idea for chocolate lattice cups you can put fruit in and I couldn't wait to try it myself. I don't know if there's supposed to be chocolate made specifically for melting for this purpose but I just grabbed some Ghiradelli bittersweet chocolate chips and melted them slowly in my microwave. If you do this, only put them in for about 10 seconds at a time and then stir between each. Then I covered some small cups with cling wrap and poured the chocolate over them. It did NOT come out all delicate and drizzly the way I had hoped but meh, I can live with it. Unfortunately, of the three cups I tried to make, only one survived the cling wrap removal process but that cup IS EPIC.

I made some vanilla flan and dumped gently drizzled caramel over it. Then I put some raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries in the cup and on a thin sheet of the drizzled chocolate and served it up for my hubby and I. I had to snap a photo first though cause I knew the minute I put it in front of him, it would be gone. He was certainly impressed for the few moments of life this dessert had before it was inhaled.

I admit it. I licked the plate and I'm not ashamed. >__>

Home made stationary

YAY! My first craft post! WOOO!

Ok, so in this little quick tutorial I just wanted to share a fast and easy way to make your own interesting and fun stationary. I have a friend in Marine Corps basic training right now and I thought I'd try to brighten up my friend's world a little by sending her some letters made on fun stationary. I looked around for some store brand stuff but my ADD knows no bounds and in the end I didn't want to just send her the same stationary every day. Why can't someone make stationary that's NEVER the same letter twice? Is that so much to ask?? 

SO, of course, since I couldn't find any I like, this left me doing what I usually do in such situations. I made my own. ^__^  I had a great booklet of scrapbook paper that my sister had given me on one of my trips up to see her. She had gotten it on sale (high five to her in thinking thrifty! I always respect that) and when she'd used what she'd needed for her own project, she passed the rest to me. This paper is beautiful and has lots of fun little cut-outs that I can play with. I didn't know what to do with it at first because I don't really make scrapbooks but then I thought about making my own stationary and this pad of scrap paper just seemed perfect! 

Ok, so enough rambling. Hit the link to see what you'll need to make your own!